Hotel Excelsior Middelkerke

... other Churches.

I did have a couple of moments with brief drizzles, but overall I had some beautiful, sunny weather and I enjoyed a few hours of walking around Brugges (while eating a delicious waffle for part of it), before returning on the 25 minute train back to Ghent.

Which is where I am now, and I'll go eat at a friend of Johanna's house for dinner tonight. It is, by the way, definitely ...

... well I think, travelling over 1400 miles (or over 2300km) and the car ran faultlessly! Overall it was an awesome holiday, we all had heaps of fun and all said we'd like to do it again. The next one is in early May, and is going to be a motorsport themed event, running through France to Monaco, ending at the Monaco Grand Prix. I'd really like to go on this rally, but won't be able to as I'll be on the Topdeck training trip!

... cuisine before (nor was I really aware that they had a particular style of cooking) but I have to say it was one of the tastiest meals I've ever eaten - I was impressed! I had a glass of Sangria to go with it too, and it was sooo good!

We spent the rest of the last evening of the rally in the bar with the others, having a few drinks and a good time. It was a late night too - not getting back til gone 3am! Overall it was a great time, we met some great people and had lots of fun.

... at the end.
We also toured the local De Halv Maans brewery, which offered good views at the top and pretty good beer. And we found the newest idea in take out--fast food pasta! They cook fresh pasta right in front of you, add a sauce, put it in a cup and give you a fork, for 3 Euro. We think it would take off at home.
Oh, we haven't mentioned chocolate yet. Brugge also has a chocolate museum which ...

... went for a wander around the Beguinage and the little streets of the city before stopping for lunch in a restaurant on the main square, which was really nice and served local traditional food which was really great.

We wanted to go up the clock-tower but the queue was far too long and we decided that we could go back another day during the week when there weren't so many tourists!

The Christmas market had just started in Bruges so we spent quite a while wandering ...

We went to Ypres on the suggestion of my dad. Ypres is located in Flanders and was a central battle ground during WWI. The town of Ypres seemed to be right in the midst of the fight and was almost completely destroyed in bombings and fires. It is also in this area that the battles of Pashchendale took place. It was one of the most deadly and greusomome places to fight in WWI and many young Canadians lost their lives there.

We got a ...

... has been preserved. After our nice walk through there we walked to the more modern area of the town and discovered a separate square with the most unusual statues in a fountain. It seemed to greatly contrast the medieval feel of the city and was almost shocking. We enjoyed them greatly though and took some pictures with the ducky of course!

After spending some time sitting at the steps in the market square we made our way up ...

... English detective show or something. We had a great night out and ran back to the hostel in the rain.
We walked all around the town and saw little parks and local areas to the north of the town where people actually live. Around town there are heaps of chocolate shops and even a TinTin shop! The clothing stores are all fancy and there are mouth-watering pink-decorated candy stores.
Our visit to Ghent was nice too. It is ...

"Pretty as a postcard" was how I'd heard Brugge described. I can now say, with some assurance, that it's true. Today I headed out early and took a daytrip to Brugge, a beautifully preserved medieval town and world heritage site. Brugge falls into that category of places that seem to exist solely for the purpose of attracting tourists and selling cameras. I always have mixed feelings about places like that: On the one hand, they're gorgeous, but on the other hand ...

Brugge or Bruges is just lovely, simply divine... We agreed to break the budget immediately - after seeing what was to offer on the menu of just about every restaurant. Muscles in Cream Sauce.... mmm... We have just finished a whole pot of them and we are almost in a daze from being so full and so content. I am a little piggy. The soft waffles and creamy-dripping chocolate just tipped us over the edge. Pete said the beer is nice but... meh ...